Starcraft Files
by xindude
Summary: A buch of random short stories. PLEASE Read and Review
1. Starcraft Files: The Zergling Rush

**Starcraft Files: The Zergling Rush**  
**F**our UED marines were scouting a high mesa for signs of the enemy, or a spot to begin a new mining encampment. The SCV that followed behind hurried to catch up, but a zergling popped up out of the ground in front of it and ripped it to shreds before the marines even knew what was going on. The marines swiveled in response, intent on enacting revenge, and quickly rushed in pursuit as the zergling sprinted away. The marines didn't realize that they were being led into a trap until the ground in front of them began to tear, and by that time it was too late. The two lurkers finished them off, leaving a pile of blood and gore in their wake.

"You bastard!" screamed Jodi, picking up and tossing her mouse across the table. Gary, sitting on the opposite side, peered over his monitor and smiled widely. "You said you would let me win!" She pushed her chair away from the table and stood, crossing her arms as she walked around to Gary's side.

Gary wiped the silly grin off his face and followed his girlfriend's gaze. A Starcraft poster hung behind her on his wall; a picture his friend Dale had drawn for a website art contest. It showed a group of Terran marines being overrun by this huge onslaught of Zerg units. It was very well-done, with computer editing and color separation, the whole nine yards. The caption underneath it read: RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. Needless to say, the picture won the contest and Gary liked it so much, he printed it out and blew it up into a poster.

And it stood for everything in Gary's life that Jodi hated.

She absolutely detested the game of Starcraft because it took her boyfriend away from her, and she was simply jealous. No amount of appeasement from Gary would suffice short of giving up the game and never playing it again. Gary's latest attempt at teaching her the game so she might appreciate it had just failed, and Gary was running out of options. He knew the ultimatum that was coming: Starcraft or Her.

"Gary," she said, leaning against the table and looking down at him. She tilted her head to the side, letting her dark brown hair fall against her left shoulder. A move Gary had learned that meant she was about to give him some important information. Like the time when she had told him to pick her up at eight. Like the time she had told him that she was moving in. Like the time when she had told him to start wearing boxers instead of briefs. It was always that head-tilt thing when she was about to 'give directions' as Dale would say.

The game of Starcraft was on the line, so Gary had to think quick. He visualized the situation as he would a game on and went on the offensive before she could say anything. Like rushing with a pack of 'Lings, he knew where her base was, and if he could get to it before she put up defenses, she would be easy prey and the game would be won. "Listen, Jodi. I know what you're going to say, and you're blowing this out of proportion. I'm not going to sit here and listen to you lecture me again about how I'm not paying attention to you when I'm playing this game. I mean, damn! This is the ONLY escape I have, Jo. I have to keep this or I SWEAR I'll go insane!"

He ended his exclamation by slapping down on the table with his palm. His adrenaline was pumping, and his breathing was ragged. He had never tried this tactic against her before, getting loud and adamant and quick on the attack. Usually, he was very relaxed and laid back. Always with a strong defense to counter any assault on his base. No, this was different. This was Starcraft talking now. And Starcraft demanded a zergling rush!

He stood up quickly and he watched Jodi's eyes widen as she backed away a few steps. She was clearly shocked by Gary's emotional outburst and was, for one rare moment of her life, at a complete loss for words. Gary liked it. As he felt the rising levels of adrenaline rushing through his bloodstream, he craved for more. He could feel her sudden fear of him as she twirled her hair with one finger. Like she always did when she was confused and unsure of what to do next. It made Gary feel like when he would be ravaging a Terran building with an army of zerglings and it would suddenly rise off the ground and into the air, hovering out of his reach. She thought she was safe, and the worse was over. No, Gary always kept a squad of Hydras nearby for such an occasion, and this time was no different.

"You listen to me, and you listen to me right now," he said through clenched teeth, pointing a sharp and accusing finger at Jodi. "You are not going to take Starcraft away from me!" She backed up and away from him, and almost yelped when she banged into the wall. Gary kept on the attack, and didn't stop until his face was inches away from her nose. 

Jodi's face was a pale white. Her green eyes were as huge as dinner plates and her whole body was trembling. Her lower lip quivered. Gary hovered in front of her, keeping his eyes locked on hers. There was nothing she could do. There was no more minerals for her to harvest, and her gas supply had run dry. She had failed to expand, and was completely caught off guard by Gary's rush.

It is not known exactly what happened in Gary's mind that day. Perhaps he had just had enough of Jodi's domination. Perhaps he had just gotten carried away with the situation and allowed things to escalate out of his control. One thing we do know for sure, is that when police arrived at the scene, and they found Gary, covered in blood, tearing chucks of flesh from his dead girlfriend's body in imitation of a zergling, there was an unfinished game of Starcraft playing on both computers on the table nearby.

The world at large may know about the entertainment value offered by Starcraft, but they do not know the darker side of Blizzard's best-selling real-time strategy computer game. No, Blizzard would rather you not hear about the secret files that are kept by the FBI, all relating to the game of Starcraft in some strange way or another. This is just one such story taken from these files.

This is Starcraft File #1a-001.


	2. Arbiter Sighting

**Starcraft Files: Arbiter Sighting**  
**T**he world at large may know about the entertainment value offered by Starcraft, but they do not know the darker side of Blizzard's best-selling real-time strategy computer game. No, Blizzard would rather you not hear about the secret files that are kept by the FBI, all relating to the game of Starcraft in some strange way or another. This is just one such story taken from these files.

This is Starcraft File #1b-002.

"Starcraft? Uh, no Sir." Kevin's mind raced with questions, but he tried to keep himself calm. He could feel the sweat on his brow, and remembered an old trick he used to do back in his days of pitching for his high-school baseball team. He centered his thoughts onto an imaginary spot, and focused all his will into maintaining that focus, while at the same time still being consciously aware of his surroundings and able to react in an instant. He kept a cool stare on Lt. Commander Stewart, and tried to make himself comfortable in the stiff wooden chair.

He sat in a small office inside the headquarters of the US Air Force base that Captain Kevin Yates had been assigned to for the past two years of his second tour of duty. He was a fly-boy by heart, and wasn't about to give up his career as a professional test pilot for the USAF. Sitting in the cockpit of next-generation aircraft for the first time was a thrill like nothing he could replicate anywhere else. But in his most recent test-flight, he had experienced such a strange encounter that it had landed him in five days of lockdown. He had been poked and prodded, and every medical test known to air force doctors had been performed twice. Still, nobody could say what it was that Kevin had experienced.

"Its a computer game, Yates." Air Force shrink Allison Jones sat in a chair next to Kevin and looked at him, jotting notes on a notepad in her lap without even looking down. "A game about space ships and alien monsters fighting a big cosmic war." Dr. Jones stopped taking notes long enough to hand Kevin a CD case.

Kevin took the case and closely examined it. It was a computer game, and the picture on the cover was colorful enough, with the title "Starcraft" printed above the face of an alien. As he turned it over, Lt. Commander Stewart cleared his throat. "Pay special attention to the picture in the upper right hand corner and tell us what you see." 

Kevin's face went white and his heart skipped a beat. As he examined the picture closer, he could indeed identify the spacecraft! It was the very same ship that he had seen five days ago during his test flight. It looked slightly different, in a more cartoonish way, than it did in real life, but Kevin knew for sure that the yellow spaceship pictured in the artwork was exactly what he had seen. 

"Captain Yates, it is my opinion that you had some sort of delusional dream brought upon by lack of oxygen and the increased air pressure caused by piloting the experimental G-15 fighter jet at such an extreme altitude." The doctor said this matter-of-factly, still jotting down notes on her pad. "These conditions caused the hallucinations that you experienced by triggering your subconscious mind to construct a quasi-reality that existed only in your head. Your confessed feelings of motionlessness while in the test-plane is a classic case of your mind becoming detached from reality. It's also interesting to note that blah, blah, and blah-blah-blah." She droned on and on endlessly about Kevin's subconscious mind and his quasi-reality perceptions during stressful and dangerous conditions and all kinds of other meaningless psycho-babble that nobody without a PHD could understand, but regardless of the "psycho-babble facts," Kevin still was convinced otherwise. Even after his commanding officer dismissed him and released him back to his barracks, Kevin knew without a doubt that he had seen something. This was no dream, nor was it something brought on by the test-plane and the altitude which he was flying. 

"The electrical field you experienced was due to a malfunction in the G-15's onboard computer system," Stewart had told him. "We're not sure of the specifics. We lost a lot of flight data, but we're double-checking what we have to make sure it doesn't happen again. You have our nation's highest thanks for bringing it back to base in the condition it was in, and because of the ordeal you went through, we are giving you two weeks of leave. To be taken immediately, starting now."

As he left the commander's office, he clutched the Starcraft game in his hand. He had to find out what was really going on here, and the only way he would be able to put his mind to rest was to return to the canyon where he had caught sight of the strange vessel. But first, he decided to find out about this Starcraft game. Rushing to the base library, he logged onto a computer and went online. Kevin had never been much of a computer user outside of what was necessary to perform his job. Truth be known, he was more comfortable with a baseball bat than a keyboard, and had never gotten the point of playing video games. What he did for real life was much more exciting than anything duplicated by sitting stationary at a desk and staring into a monitor.

He quickly found the information he was after with an easy Yahoo search. The spacecraft in question was called an Arbiter, and it was a ship made by the Protoss race. Upon more reading, he discovered that the Arbiter had several special abilities. The most notable was an ability called Stasis Field, a maneuver that Kevin himself had fallen victim to when his experimental fighter jet suddenly locked up, encased in an electrical force-field that kept him stranded in mid-air, unable to do anything. 

One of the Arbiter's other special abilities made him take sudden and attentive notice to because of the grave dangers that this spacecraft offered towards the world. It could cloak other ships around it, rendering an entire fleet invisible. If this were true, and Kevin really HAD seen an Arbiter, then for all he or anyone else knew, a group of aliens could be waiting right now to be gated in from their far away home world!

Later that night, Kevin laid back in the seat of his old Jeep Wrangler, staring up at the dancing stars overhead. The slivered moon hung low over the horizon of the small desert canyon, and all was quiet except for the faint rustling of a light breeze. He inhaled deeply, letting the cool desert air fill his lungs. As he exhaled, he could feel his mind beginning to unravel, torn between what was logical, and what he only knew in his heart to have seen and experienced. How could something from a video game he had never played before manifest itself into his subconscious? The Stasis Field ability of the Arbiter was an accurate comparison of the sensation that Kevin had experienced, but yet the Air Force pilot remained conflicted. Could a cloaked Protoss Observer be watching him now?

FINAL ANALYISIS OF CAPTAIN KEVIN YATES  
By Dr. Allison Jones

It is my opinion that Captain Yates succumbed to the stress of the situation forced upon him. Unable to explain the delusions his subconscious created, he stalwartly believed he had seen a spaceship taken from a video game. 

I have on record my earlier recommendation to Lt. Commander Stewart that the Captain be placed under surveillance and his security clearance revoked. However, Lt. Stewart failed to understand the fragile state of the pilot's psyche. I believe we are all guilty of severely underestimating this man.

Two days after being released on leave, Captain Kevin Yates risked his Air Force career and stole the experimental G-15 fighter jet, flying low over the Nevada desert and towards the canyon where he had spotted the strange spacecraft several days ago. He risked his life as well. Neither he, nor the fighter jet, have ever been seen again. Numerous witnesses have filed many documented statements testifying to having seen strange UFOs in the general vicinity of the G-15's disappearance, but nothing has ever been confirmed.

In the last transmission that Captain Yates sent back to the Air Force base, just seconds before he disappeared off their radar, the message was distorted and full of static from some unknown interference, but one word was clearly understandable.

"...Ophelia…"


End file.
